


A Break In Routine

by IamShadow21



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Consent Issues, Domestication, Experiments, Extremely Dubious Consent, Gen, Handcuffs, Humour, Injury, M/M, Non Consensual, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, Petty Feuds, Sherlock Holmes Deduces You Whether You Like It Or Not, Tea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-24
Updated: 2011-05-24
Packaged: 2017-10-19 18:10:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/203796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IamShadow21/pseuds/IamShadow21
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An injury can shift the balance of things in a hundred little ways.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Break In Routine

**Author's Note:**

> If you have issues with consent issues, don't read this story. It is tagged with several permutations of consent issues, and it is tagged with the 'choose not to use archive warnings' label, which covers all of the big four 'major' warnings, including non-con. Consider yourself warned.

It's a slick piece of concrete that does him in. The harsh December air has chilled just enough to rime a damp patch with ice, and John's halfway to the ground before he knows what's happened. He has no time to tuck his bad arm, the one with all the titanium holding it together, against his chest for protection.

He's twisted when he lands, and it takes the full force of his weight slamming down on it. The pain's so abrupt that all the air leaves his lungs without a sound, and by the time he can control them enough to draw breath, Sherlock has disappeared, too intent on the chase to notice that he's running alone.

With his other hand, John fumbles out his mobile and calls for a taxi. He doesn't bother to question the extent of injury. It's broken. Not an open fracture, thank Christ, but enough to send him in search of medical attention and prescription pain medication.

It's a Friday night. The taxi takes a long time; long enough that John is shivering with the cold and shock by the time the cab draws up beside the curb. Sherlock doesn't return.

*

While he's sitting in the hospital waiting area, dabbing at the scrapes on his hand with a damp tissue, he gets a text from Sherlock requesting his presence. John is trying to frame a reply when he gets another, which tells him not to bother coming after all.

 **No fear** , John gripes.

He wonders if the comfort gained is enough of a motivation to shove more pound coins into the beverage machine. The tea it produces is weak and bitter all at once, and the fake milk is disgusting, but the dubious drink is too hot to drink for at least five minutes anyway, and it's nice to hold, just for something to do besides watch the rolling infomercials on the old telly bolted to the ceiling.

 **Where are you? SH** arrives just as he's being called in. At the frown from the nurse, John switches his phone off.

*

Sherlock is sitting upright in his chair, fingers steepled, eyes moving back and forth as if reading invisible writing when John walks in. The reaction is immediate.

“Oh,” Sherlock says, his lips parting in a perfect expression of surprise. He's not shocked, not startled, but John can see the new data being assimilated, the puzzle of his evening being methodically deduced in the space of a few heartbeats.

It's annoying.

“Right,” John says eventually, turning away from Sherlock and shuffling to the kitchen.

Making tea one-handed is awkward. Making tea with only his non-dominant hand is perilous.

While he's waiting for the kettle to boil, John watches Sherlock rifle through his damp coat, then hack easily through his current laptop password.

“Most people _ask_ ,” John grouches, sounding peevish even to his own ears.

“Boring,” Sherlock declares. “Need something to occupy myself now that Staines is behind bars.”

When John sets a mug of tea down beside Sherlock's elbow, he sees that the current thing occupying Sherlock's attention is the disc containing John's x-rays. He loses interest quickly.

The tea sits uncomfortably in John's stomach. The residue of pain and the fug of painkillers is enough to make him feel ill at the best of times, but on an empty stomach, it's almost like the beginnings of seasickness.

Sherlock discards John's laptop with an impatient sigh.

“What's for dinner? I'm ravenous.”

John grips the chair arm a little tighter and hopes he won't need a bucket.

“Order yourself a pizza or something. I'm sure Angelo's would deliver for you.”

Then he slinks upstairs and lies down in the dark, far away from Sherlock's grumbling and the odours of yeast and tomato.

*

Shaving, John quickly decides, is for masochists. He'll either have to shell out for an electric razor, or just let himself go hairy for a month or two. Hairy is in, anyway, right? You can't walk past a magazine stand these days without seeing the artfully unshaven mug of Jude Law, or some other ponce. It'll itch like a bastard, but being itchy is infinitely preferable to bleeding everywhere. And he isn't going to pay for a shave. Or, heaven forbid, ask Sherlock to do it for him. To him. That was veering into very sexually ambiguous water indeed, and John doesn't need the confusion.

Sherlock obviously deduces his decision and the reasons immediately. It's not difficult; John could have done it easily himself from the obnoxiously fluorescent cast and the nicks on his face that are stubbornly resisting clotting.

Sherlock doesn't offer to help. He just asks if he can measure John's stubble as it grows.

John can't think of an excuse to not let him.

“You're making the tea, today, then,” John bargains.

Sherlock flaps a hand at the irrelevance of tea at that present moment. However, later that morning, when he opens his mouth to ask, John gives him a _look_ , and Sherlock wisely makes his way to the kitchen without comment. He even makes two cups.

*

John tries to keep on top of it all, but everything takes so long he hardly makes a dint. The dishes pile up in drifts and flurries like mucky slushy snow. The takeaway containers pile drunkenly in the corner around the full rubbish bin. The bath develops a suspicious looking ring around it.

“It wouldn't hurt you to pull your load for once, you know,” John snipes. He's grumpy, and he knows that it's his arm that's making him so grumpy, which serves to compound his grumpiness enough to turn him into a nagging spouse, apparently.

Sherlock doesn't condescend to even answer. He probably thinks that kitchens clean themselves if you leave them long enough.

Mrs Hudson proves Sherlock right by 'tidying up a bit' one day while John's at the clinic. He thanks her through gritted teeth, and wonders why the tidying irritates him more than the mess did. Maybe it's the smug look on Sherlock's face.

When he makes the tea next time, he makes it slightly too cold with a little too much sugar.

Sherlock's expression on tasting it tells John that he's being incredibly childish and petty, but it doesn't stop the jolt of gleeful malice he feels.

Sherlock orders the dinner that night, with his own card, and even gets extra naan without being told.

*

John's beard does itch, and his clothes don't sit right, and he has to start wearing a knitted vest rather than a jumper because it's the only thing that will fit over his cast. His other arm gets cold.

On the plus side though, he justifies having decadent long baths on the grounds that it's easier to bathe with a cast than to shower with his arm dangling out ridiculously into the room. He tops up the hot water as often as he likes, gets pruney fingers and notices a general improvement in his aches and pains.

Sherlock sulks at the loss of a convenient place to perform his messier corpse based experiments and relocates to the kitchen sink. As a result, John refuses to make tea or cook until he re-relocates it again to Bart's. It's a tense stand-off that lasts for almost a week, before Sherlock decides that Bart's has much better facilities for what he has in mind, and John snaps and makes proper leaf tea in a teapot and spends the next hour in some kind of afterglow state that Sherlock wants to chart and study, but John refuses to allow the blood samples. Because both retreats happen virtually simultaneously, both of them consider themselves the winner, and that evening is really quite pleasant.

*

There is no easy and effective way to scratch an itch under a cast. John spends more time trying to retrieve whatever item he's tried to use (pencil, ruler) than actually locating the itch itself. It doesn't stop him trying.

*

“I need you to send a text,” Sherlock requests in his usual imperial tone.

John fumbles and pokes at his phone for nearly a minute before Sherlock huffs a sigh.

“Never mind, just give it here.”

John slaps his phone into Sherlock's hand and turns up the television to just a touch louder than Sherlock likes it.

*

It's some ungodly hour of the morning. It's disgustingly early and cold, and Sherlock is looming over him like some caricature villain. His eyes are sparking and he's practically oozing smugness.

John groans and moves to scrub his good hand over his face, but it arrests in mid air with a clatter and a jerk. Another tug, but it's fruitless.

“Sherlock,” he grinds out, his voice rough and thick from sleep.

“I've worked it out,” Sherlock begins, as though the setting requires no explanation.

“It'd better be good,” John growls, his foggy head scrambling to compose a Top Ten Ways To Hurt Your Flatmate While Cuffed To Your Own Bed list.

“It will be,” Sherlock assured him. “I've been studying techniques for the past four hours.”

John's brain stutters, starts and stutters to a halt again when Sherlock yanks down the bed clothes and reaches confidently for John's pyjama pants.

John decides struggling is a good idea.

Sherlock frowns, then sits on John's knees. “Stop that. You're making this difficult.”

“What, why...”

“You've been very out of sorts. It's annoying.” One long, clever hand is methodically rubbing John through soft flannel, and it's obviously been far too long since he was able to touch himself with satisfactory skill, let alone since someone else did it, because John forgets escaping for a few moments.

Eventually, he gathers what's left of his willpower and stands his ground. “Sherlock, you're going to do two things. First, you're going to uncuff me. Then, you're going to stand very still while I punch you in the face.”

“No.”

“Fine, no punching. But you're going to uncuff me, and you're going to leave, and we are never, ever going to talk about this ever again.”

John's voice wobbles over the last few words when Sherlock does a clever twist with his fingers.

“Not going to happen.”

“You can't... you can't just...”

Sherlock makes an impatient sound, the one reserved for when John is being particularly dense. “I'm not going to stop, because you want this and you know you need it. The cuffs are necessary because you'll find it easier to relax and accommodate this if you can pretend you have no choice.”

Sherlock's hand is inside his pants, now, and John is cursing him out in three different languages. He can't help but note in a moment of clarity that the intonation is just shy of pleading. He is not trying to spread his legs, not at all. Sherlock shifts a little, reaches down to cup John's balls, squeezes and rubs and strokes with both hands until there's no words left in John's mouth at all. He's sweating like a racehorse and there's come pooling on his belly, and he doesn't know whether he'd kiss Sherlock or attempt murder were he free.

Sherlock is obviously of the same mind, because he doesn't uncuff John; he just throws the blankets back over him and pads out of the room, back down the stairs. The violin starts up moments later.

John is still thinking vaguely of violence in general when he falls asleep very soon afterwards.

*

He wakes in the morning cuff-free, covered in dried come. There's a still warm cup of tea on the nightstand. At a loss for what else to do, he drinks it, then takes another very long bath.

Sherlock doesn't behave any differently that John can see at first. It's like it never happened, which is maddening in itself. Then he casually mentions that John appears to have slept well, and John has to resist very hard the urge to throw something at his head. It really doesn't help that Sherlock's right. He should be feeling violated or shocky or something, and instead he just feels the remnants of last night's lassitude, maybe even something he recognises as _cheerfulness_.

“Really, _really_ not good,” John forces out.

“My apologies,” Sherlock says gravely, even though John knows he's anything but contrite.

*

He locks the bedroom door that night, though he dithers an awfully long time deciding to do it.

*

Sherlock isn't there when he wakes up the next morning. Instead, propped against the kettle, is a package. A package containing a brand new waterproof vibrator. John doesn't know whether to burst into hysterical laughter, weep, or shout at something. He settles for sinking to the floor and giggling far longer than he feels sane doing.

“We're all mad here,” he mumbles, wiping his eyes, and all he can think is that Sherlock wouldn't get the reference.

He puts the vibrator in his room, rather than the bin.

He also makes dinner that night. It's nothing complicated, but it's filling and delicious and a nice change from weeks of other people's cooking. Sherlock even eats a small second helping.

*

Getting the cast off makes John feel twitchy, of all things. He wants to do everything, all at once. His arm feels light and weak, is rubbed bald in some places and is dirty and pasty from wrist to elbow. Another bath, first on the list.

The beard was going, immediately after.

He was going to wear a jumper, cook proper stove top risotto, and play that new damned console game that Sherlock had come home with that _obviously_ John would beat him at so decisively that Sherlock would give up playing in a huff until he'd read up on all the cheats.

“You know the drill, anyway,” Sarah says. “Gentle to moderate exercise to get your muscle tone and grip strength back up.”

John blames Sherlock _completely_ for the undignified snorting noise he makes. He tries to cover it with a cough. “Of course.”

*

“Ah, good,” Sherlock says, pleased, when John gets home. “We have a case.”

John dumps the Tesco's bags unceremoniously on the cluttered table, pausing only to tuck the cold goods away.

The bath can wait.


End file.
